One
determined woman, on the outskirts of the town of Forres, no doubt with
her future potato crop in view, met the M.P. who headed one of these
committees, thus, "Noo, Major, ye may tak our lives, but ye'll no tak
our middens."
The truth is, many of the peculiarities which marked Scottish society
departed with the disuse of the Scottish dialect in the upper ranks. I
recollect a familiar example of this, which I may well term a
Reminiscence. At a party assembled in a county house, the Earl of Elgin
(grandfather of the present Earl) came up to the tea-table, where Mrs.
Forbes of Medwyn, one of the finest examples of the past Scottish
_lady_, was sitting, evidently much engaged with her occupation. "You
are fond of your tea, Mrs. Forbes?" The reply was quite a characteristic
one, and a pure reminiscence of such a place and such interlocutors;
"'Deed, my Lord, I wadna gie my tea for your yerldom."
My aunt, the late Lady Burnett of Leys, was one of the class of Scottish
ladies I have referred to;--thoroughly a good woman and a gentlewoman,
but in dialect quite Scottish. For example, being shocked at the sharp
Aberdonian pronunciation adopted by her children, instead of the broader
Forfarshire model in which she had been brought up, she thus adverted to
their manner of calling the _floor_ of the room where they were playing:
"What gars ye ca' it '_fleer_?' canna ye ca' it '_flure_?' But I needna
speak; Sir Robert winna let me correc' your language.
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